Ubuntu WebApps: Where does that leave Lubuntu?

By now, I'm sure you've heard of Ubuntu's new WebApps. If not, here's a movie that fills you in.

In my opinion, WebApps is a brilliant first step to integrate the web and the desktop in a seamless fashion. However, this integration is specifically designed for the Unity desktop environment. In other words, Lubuntu users can't use it.

So what are our options?

First, I suggest creating bookmark apps. With a few steps, you can create your own Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and other bookmark launchers. Now, pulling up your favorite social networking site is a click away.

Secondly, you may wish to look into applications like Nuvola. Nuvola integrates web-based music services into the desktop.

You can chose from Amazon, 8tracks, Google, Groveshark, Hype Machine, Pandora, and Rdio.

Although each service is simply a wrapper of the website, Nuvola does offer a notification tray icon, notification pop-ups, and dock integration.

So, it's not a perfect solution by any means, but it starts the process.

Finally, should you hold your breath for Lubuntu to adopt WebApps in the future? Considering Ubuntu One integration has been on the to-do list for awhile, I would start looking elsewhere.

Enjoy your new and minimal web/desktop integration!

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DeaDBeeF Music Player

Lubuntu 10.04-11.10

I already posted about my all-time favorite music player, Pithos, but sometimes I'm in the mood for an entire album from my collection. Enter DeaDBeeF, an incredibly lightweight music player.

I prefer DeaDBeef over the default Audacious because it has a simpler, more intuitive interface while retaining Audacious' leanness.

When playing a tune on my small netbook, I don't need to worry about RAM or CPU usage:

Want it? You can grab it by opening LXTerminal and pasting in the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:alexey-smirnov/deadbeef
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install deadbeef

As a final point, I love the file browser plugin. You can snag that here. After you download the .zip, extract it to temporary folder and copy the .so file(s) to

~/.local/lib/deadbeef/.

Enjoy DeaDBeef.

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Lubuntu + Pandora = Pithos

Lubuntu and Ubuntu 10.04-12.04

If you're like me, you installed Lubuntu on your netbook because it is such a lightweight OS. The last thing I want to do is import my entire music collection on the hard drive, but I need my tunes! Enter Pithos.

Pithos is a Pandora client that plays high-quality, ad-free music from your Pandora account in a flash-free app. Did I mention it's ad-free?

To snag this app, open up LXTerminal and enter the following:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kevin-mehall/pithos-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pithos

In closing, all systems are a bit different, but I had some issues playing Pithos out of the box. It gave me a gstreamer error. If you run across this same issue, open Synaptic (Menu -> System Tools -> Synaptic Packet Manager) and search for gstreamer.

I installed the following two packets and everything worked perfectly.

gstreamer-tools
gstreamer0.10-alsa

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